Where were Foo Fighters and Nickelback? Or even a band like Three Days Grace, who had a pretty big year? There was no Vampire Weekend or Daughtry. It was very one-sided. … [The award show is] raising the bar of confusion and disarray. The VMAs are consistently clusterfucks, and this year set a new standard. … You had people who were invited sitting out in the streets. Plus, everybody was texting, no one was watching the show. I got super bummed out. … I think the VMAs have completely lost touch with a broad scope of music. It was very bubble gum and Disney, which is why bands like Foo Fighters, and everybody else in my group weren’t there.

I can’t say that I even remotely enjoy Linkin Park or half the bands he mentioned in his rant, but the dude makes some brilliant statements about MTV’s flagship award show and, by proxy, the state of the network in general. He is saying nothing that most of us didn’t already know or think, but it’s nice to see it come from an actual product of MTV’s influence over popular music and culture.

The VMAs, much like their host network, is neither cool, outrageous, spontaneous, edgy, funny, or entertaining anymore. In fact, it manages to be the exact opposite of all of these at once. The 15 minutes of this year’s show that I could bear to watch bombarded me with an unfunny, awkward Brit spewing predictable political rants before introducing mush-brain music acts to a bored celebrity audience. Keep in mind that approximately 78% of this celebrity audience was either drunk, lit up, or awesomely both, and still had enough sense to be bored by this abortion and its attempt to convince us all that Britney Spears, coming off the lowest, most bat-shit, white trash year of her career and life, deserved a handful of their dopey Moonman awards.